Mario Götze is cemented in soccer history as the scorer of the winning goal that secured Germany’s 2014 FIFA World Cup victory. He is also an increasingly seasoned angel investor. His personal investment vehicle, Companion M, now holds a portfolio of more than 70 companies. Two of these, the Danish fintech Flatpay and the German AI startup Parloa, achieved unicorn status in 2025.
The athlete has learned important lessons about vetting opportunities along the way. He stated that he only agrees to invest if a startup and its founders check all the boxes. These boxes can be subjective at his typical investment stage, which is pre-seed and seed rounds with ticket sizes between 25,000 and 50,000 euros. To address this subjectivity, Götze says Companion M focuses on specific areas where they have built profound network and expertise.
Surprisingly, sports is not one of those core areas, at least not directly. According to Götze, Companion M primarily focuses on B2B SaaS, software infrastructure, cybersecurity, as well as health and biotech. While not sports tech per se, health and biotech are a natural niche for an athlete interested in human performance and wellness, and who has the freedom to pursue unconventional opportunities in those fields.
In 2020, Götze made headlines for investing in the German cannabis startup Sanity Group when most European institutional investors were avoiding the sector. Since then, Germany has liberalized some aspects of its cannabis laws, creating tailwinds for the startup, which claimed a ten percent share of the German medical cannabis market in 2024. With cannabis still forbidden for athletes in competition, Götze will have to wait to try the products himself. The 33-year-old is still playing professionally at the top league level with German club Eintracht Frankfurt.
Rather than waiting for retirement, he is taking cues from American athlete-investors like NBA champion Kevin Durant. Götze is not the only active European soccer player who invests in startups; Cristiano Ronaldo and Kylian Mbappé also do. But as a father of two young daughters, he has to balance his various commitments. He schedules calls before or after practices and aligns meetings with weeks when he does not have away games or Champions League matches.
Götze is not doing it all himself, but he is also not simply entrusting others with his money. Instead, he created Companion M as a small team that supports him with angel investing, partnerships, and other tasks. He explained that these efforts are important for his personal brand, particularly in the long term after his active career ends.
There is an undeniable branding aspect to these efforts. When Götze became Revolut’s first-ever brand ambassador for Germany, the fintech company cited his track record as an angel investor as an incentive. While preparing for his post-soccer career, Götze has found what he describes as another passion apart from sport.
This passion may be less unexpected than it seems. While Götze and his brothers all became soccer players, their father Jürgen is a professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology of TU Dortmund University. The family also spent time in Houston, Texas, when Jürgen was a postdoctoral researcher at Rice University.
Not coincidentally, Götze mostly invests in Europe and in the United States. His past investments include Miami-based Arcee AI and Frankfurt-based Qualifyze. Several portfolio companies have raised significant follow-on funding, and he has already exited some, such as Berlin-based KoRo. Exits give Götze capital to reinvest, but he is also focused on long-term wealth consolidation. As a limited partner, Companion has backed more than twenty venture capital firms on both sides of the Atlantic.
Götze is still under contract with his club and is reportedly discussing an extension. But whenever he finally retires, these venture firms could count him as a peer. He has stated that after his career ends, he plans to focus on his investment activities.
But even then, do not expect him to publish an anti-portfolio of startups he passed on that later became huge successes. He believes there are plenty of new startups every year, and there will be some that you miss out on. He notes that regretting past decisions leads to making uneducated or impulsive decisions in the future. This is spoken like a true sportsman: dwelling on what you missed will not help you score the next goal.